Field of the Invention
The disclosed and claimed invention relates to carts and, more specifically, to a tote cart including tilting tote support assemblies.
Background Information
Restocking shelves at a retail outlet requires transporting the items to be restocked to the shelves. When the items to be restocked are restocked in bulk, a number of the items are placed on a cart and moved to a location near the shelves. For example, milk and bread are items that tend to sell quickly and are restocked in bulk. Other items, however, may not sell as often and/or quickly. For example, a given type of cosmetic may sell only a few units per month. Such items are not restocked in bulk. That is, it is inefficient to load a cart full of a given type of cosmetic if only a few units are needed to restock the shelves. Further, it is inefficient for a worker to carry a few units of a given type of cosmetic from a storage area to the shelf.
To overcome these inefficiencies, retailers use totes. A tote is a reusable, portable enclosure into which a variety of items may be placed for temporary storage and transport. In use, a tote is filled with a number of disparate items at a warehouse and sent to a retail location that requested those items. That is, for example, a first retail location requests five units of Cosmetic A and three units of Cosmetic B, while a second retail location requests four units of Cosmetic A and six units of Cosmetic B. Cosmetics A and B are stored in bulk at a warehouse. When the requests are received at the warehouse, a tote for the first retail location is prepared which includes five units of Cosmetic A and three units of Cosmetic B. Similarly, a tote for the second retail location is prepared which includes four units of Cosmetic A and six units of Cosmetic B. In this manner, each retail location is not required to have bulk storage of all items being sold. Moreover, by using totes, each retail location receives a limited number of selected items that are needed at a specific time.
A tote may, however, be heavy. Further, a retail location, may require more than one tote to restock all the items that are needed at a given time. Thus, a number of totes, each containing a mix of items, may be delivered to a specific retail location. The totes are then placed on a cart and moved to a location near the shelves. This system also has disadvantages.
One disadvantage is that the carts typically have planar and level shelves. In this configuration the worker must engage in a motion of reaching downwardly into the tote, lifting the item and placing the items on the shelf. One instance of this motion does not take an excessive amount of time or cause undue stress. This motion, however, is likely to be repeated many, many times by many different workers at many different locations. Thus, given a large number of repetitions, time is wasted. Moreover, the worker is also subjected to repetitive stresses. Further, such carts are not aesthetically appealing and may block narrow aisles.
One solution to some of these disadvantages was to provide a cart with tilted shelves upon which a tote may be disposed. The tilted shelves angle the tote to one side thereby reducing the distance a worker must move an item as well as allowing the worker easier access to the interior of the tote. Such a cart, however, also has disadvantages. For example, totes tend to slide off tilted shelves when the cart is in motion. This is a problem. Further, the tilted shelves of such a cart must accommodate totes with different centers of gravity. That is, depending upon the number, type, and configuration of items in a tote, the center of gravity of the tote changes. The tilted shelves of such a cart cannot have shelves at too steep of an angle because totes with a high and/or offset center of gravity could lift and fall off the shelf. Thus, such carts tend to have shelves with a minor tilt, e.g., less than 30 degrees. Further, such carts have the shelves tilted the same direction. In this configuration, the totes are only tilted toward a single side of an aisle. Thus, if two workers were unloading the cart from different lateral sides of the cart, one worker would be on the side opposite the tilt of the shelves. Further, if a single worker had to stock items on shelves on both sides of an aisle, the worker would have to rotate the cart in the aisle so as to face each side of the aisle. During such an operation, the cart would block the aisle and be inconvenient to customers.
There is, therefore, a need for a cart structured to reduce the time and range of motion associated with restocking shelves from a tote disposed on a cart. There is a further need for such a cart to be less inconvenient to customers who are shopping during restocking operations.